


Sweet Air

by vasaris



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Dystopia, Gen, Rape, References to: slavery, Sex Work, and forced pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 15:32:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9331664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vasaris/pseuds/vasaris
Summary: Clean water and pure air – he could use her however he liked for what he’d already given her





	

Dugarl flinched when she peeked through the crack in the door. The heavy clouds lumbered bruise-black across the effluent sky. She tightened her scarf around her mouth, wrapping the meagre length in as many layers as she could. It was scant protection from the fume-filled air. The master’s manufactories belched clouds of red-limned smoke day and night, filling the night-paths with sparks and poison to light Dugarl’s way to and from the Eld, where the Silent scrabbled in the dark.

“Get you going, slut! Ain’t no reason to waste the Master’s sweet air on the likes of you.” Rough hands grabbed her, shoving her against the wall by the door. Dugarl shuddered, feeling the press of the speaker’s breeding spike against her back. “An’ I had time, I might let you offer me mouth or cunt for a few more minutes inside, but I’m a busy man.”

Dugarl held herself still as Overseer rubbed up against her, breath hot and fetid on her cheek.

“Come in earlier tomorrow and we’ll talk about it.”

The door opened and Dugarl was thrown out upon the broken stones of the night-path. She rolled with the force of it, landing in stinging muck just as the first, fat drops of hissing rain fell from the sky. Dugarl pushed herself to her feet. She needed to get to shelter. Already the air burned in her chest.

She hurried along the night-path, avoiding slow-filling pools of rancid-water as the poisoned sky unleashed its fury. Acrid rain soaked her hair, sending pricking, stinging rivulets down her neck and face, and burning rivers into her eyes. Dugarl grunted, pushing sopping locks away from her eyes and breathing as shallowly as she could.

Bitter water scoured the air, damping the sparks vomited skyward by the Master’s foundries, and leaving the ever-dark of the paths blackened, but for the occasional actinic flash across the sky. Dugarl laid a hand on the crumbling not-stone of the ancient canyons of the Eld, hoping that touch would tell her what her eyes could not. It was hard to breathe – sodden fabric molded to her cheeks, her nose, her mouth; each burning with the biting rain.

Dugarl pulled it down, exposing her face to the glowering monoliths where the Silent lurked, lured by the pelting rain. Droplets pummeled hard and barren earth, a rolling beat that muted the normal sounds of the night-paths. Something darted past the edge of her vision and Dugarl looked up. Forked light flashed across the dome of the sky, revealing flickers of pale skin amidst the gouged emptiness of the night-path’s eyes.

She walked faster, beneath leering holes, damning the rain that exposed her secret. Sodden over-layers could not conceal the swell of her breasts, nor the curve of her hips, not when their concealing bulk had been wishes and air. In the master’s sky-tower she’d been safe enough, an uncomplaining vessel for the Master’s sons to exercise their breeding spikes upon, in exchange for scraps and crisp, sweet air.

A worthy bargain, for a girl who lived in the Eld.

Dugarl had known it couldn’t last, not when she had to traverse the feral packs of the Silent, who always watched, waiting for the rare female to cross their path. The Master’s servants culled most girl-children at birth, leaving only a few to be impaled upon the breeding spikes until they swelled; swelled and died upon the birthing bed.

She passed beneath a scrap of ancient fabric, listening intently for the sound of pursuit over the rolling, roiling rain. There was something there – not footsteps. She licked her lips, grimacing against the bitter-sour of rain and rotted air. It was… strange.

Pretty.

It pulled on something in her chest, something light and airy – like joy. The sound wove, sprightly and brilliant through the poisoned drops, calling to her feet as she listened. Dugarl had never heard anything like it. It was yearning in a bottle; hope in a bubble. She darted out of the paltry shelter, seeking the source.

Dugarl scurried between rotted arch and tumbled wall, following the strange and beautiful noise. It led her down night-paths she’d never trod, toward places where the towers of the Eld were not so broken, with fewer eyes smashed into daggers. Her eyes widen, despite the burning spite of the rain. There are lights here, sitting atop warped metal spires. They shone, sullen orangish-yellow, like the ones at the base of the Master’s Spire. There were only a few at first, until she found an entire section of the path lit up brighter than daylight.

The sounds grew louder and she looked up, seeing a flicker of movement against some light. Dugarl wasn't certain what she saw. A figure paced back and forth, enclosed by unbroken walls. Backlit by magical glow of blue-white, like the lights of the Master’s Disc high above the Eld, the creature was in shadow. It seemed like the Silent, yet impossibly different. One inordinately long limb seemed to be bent awkwardly, a clumsy fist tucked beneath the creature’s chin, while the other swept over the back of it, drawing forth the aural glory that has called her.

A grunt escaped her chest and the sound abruptly stops.

“Whas theere?”

Dugarl darted into a darkened archway.

“Yah! Yah, theere. Camon oout. Emmnot wath th’maisstre.”

She frowned up at the strange creature, only to find it in a clearly human seeming. A normal head thrust out into the rain, dark curls shining black in the light. Normal hands gripped unbroken stone and metal, offering balance.

Her breath barked out, like a punch to the lungs.

“Eeh, f’ffuoksake.” The creature retreated, hands grabbing part of the wall and sliding it down. A shining eye glinted, unbroken, when it was done and the thing disappeared. Dugarl sighed, a little sadly. Its noises had been wonderful. Moments later a mouth gaped open in the canyon wall, and she could clearly see her creature. It was a man, much like the lissome and graceful boys who she served, providing a place for their breeding spikes and aggression, so they wouldn’t harm the delicate flowers that bloomed on the spire.

“Commin. Th’rain s’heevy. Commin, geet dry.”

Dugarl stared at him, slowly turning the sounds into words. _Come in. The rain is heavy. Come in, get dry._

She wondered if he was mad. Who in the Eld would offer another shelter outside of the Warrens and the great Barracks that housed the Workers for the Master’s manufactories?

“Come in,” she heard, and her body moved, almost without her volition. Who was she to disobey? He had the power of voice – he was born to command those like her, who had none. She slipped past him and gasped in surprise. The air here was pure and warm. It caught in her throat, the way the Spire’s did, making her cough, deep and phlegmy.

The man sighed. “Come along. Let’s get you clean and dry, my girl.”

She followed him up the stairs, to a strange little room. White-and-blue, covered with odd, slick little stones of uniform size, it was fascinating. It had one of the low bowls, like the ones in the spire, where you pissed and shat, and a taller, free-standing one, that was shallow, with shining metal things atop it’s surface.

“Give me your clothes, I’ll see if they can be salvaged while you shower.”

Dugarl tilted her head, puzzled, before a deeper, harder coughing fit took her. Great blocks of black, bitter mucous broke free, choking her as she fell to her knees beside the shit-bowl. Vile gobs of passed her lips as she heaved, stomach cramping at the taste and adding acid and bile.

“How… unpleasant,” said the man as the convulsive spasms stopped. He pulled a cord, sending what smelled like fresh, drinkable water through the shit-bowl, clearing the mass of muck and puke down the hole.   It took all of Dugarl’s strength not to chase it and drink her fill. He pulled her up and sat her down above the now-clear pool of water. His hand moved one of the strange metal things, twisting it like a lever, and water flowed, clear and bright. He lifted something from the flattened top of the shallow bowl. It looked like a cup, but made from the clear stuff of the Eld’s ancient eyes, not metal.

It looked slick to the touch, but wasn’t slippery at all when she took it. The water was as clean as it smelled and Dugarl drank it eagerly.

“Undress,” he said, taking the cup back, and Dugarl nodded, standing up. It was a more than fair exchange. Clean water and pure air – he could use her however he liked for what he’d already given her. His eyes traveled down her form, from the rain-burns on her face to the bruises that marked her belly and thighs. He sighed. “Poor child.”

Dugarl scowled.

“Don’t like that, do you?” He shook his head. “To me, there is no one in Old London who isn’t a child.”

Dugarl’s brow knit in confusion. The way he said it, _old_ instead of _eld_ , was something she’d never heard before.  The Voiced rarely spoke to the likes of her except to issue orders. The man was like the Master and his get – willowy and beautiful, with eyes that spoke of generations.

“Still, there’s no hope for it,” he told her cheerfully. “I’m certainly glad to meet you. I get so few visitors.”

He led her out of the odd little room and out to a larger one, where there was a great maw, where fire burned high and bright. She flinched away from it – fire was dangerous, even without the smoke it pushed into already tainted air.

“You needn’t fear it, my dear,” said the man, draping a thick, warm blanket over her shoulders. “I merely thought you might like to warm up while I deal with your clothes.”

Dugarl wrapped herself in the fire-warmed folds, confused. Where was the bruising grip? The hardened press of the breeder’s spike? If he didn’t want her to rut upon, why call her inside to a paradise of air, heat, and water?

She looked around. The room was filled with a jumble of unfamiliar things. Strange blocks, with the same arcane symbols used around the Spire. Dugarl ran a finger along one edge, startled when sharp edges dented. She glanced around, hesitant, then lifted. The block was made of thin leaves, each covered in the alien forms she’d only ever seen in the highest points she’d been allowed to be, or in the lowest, down in choking depths of the Warrens.

“Do you know how to read?” The man’s voice echoed in her ear, and she jumped. “Foolish question – I know. Your Master has no desire to hear your complaints, he’s hardly going to see you rendered Silent, only to leave you the written word.”

Dugarl blinked at him and looked down. Words?

“Are you warm enough?”

Dugarl nodded and he smiled. “Excellent. It may be some days before the rain lets up. You’re welcome to stay until it passes. If you’re willing, I have a few tasks that you can do for me, in compensation.”

She nodded again.

“Please come with me, then.” He led her out and down some stairs, and then down more, coming to a halt before a metal door. “Did you enjoy the music?”

Dugarl cocked her head, uncertain.

“I was playing my violin. I’m just curious if you enjoyed it.” The door opened to a charnel reek and Dugarl gaged. High upon a far wall dozens of empty eyes stared down at her from white-bleached skulls. Tall, clear vats sat, rippling guts floating within them. He turned, something glinting in his hand. “People should always enjoy music life brings them. I’m so glad you’re willing to help me bring that joy, my dear. I’m always in need of new strings.”

 


End file.
